Nov 1

Nov 1 On Talkin' Politics

Summary: Eyes are glued to the lead-up to the US Presidential Election. Yes, the outcome of the election could have wide impacts on everyday life, but did you know it can impact friendship as well? Indeed, an Ipsos poll found that 17.4% of people had blocked someone on social media after the ‘disruptor in chief’ was elected. New research finds that if you’re going to talk politics, you’re better off talking to a stranger!

Talkin Politics - Approach At Your Own Risk

Voting is a key privilege and responsibility in a democratic society. How elections turn out shapes governmental policy, and in the case of mammoth nations like the United States of America, can have global impacts.

With so many impacts to one’s living conditions based on the outcome of an election, naturally conversations with friends, family, and colleagues turn to the subject of politics. Yet, as we all know, this subject is taboo. According to an article on LinkedIn: “Unless you work at home by yourself, the environment today does not lend itself to any discussion of politics while at work. Politics and political leaders are now taboo topics.”

Yikes! That’s strict! The author’s reasoning? Because talking politics at work is simply too emotionally charged and disruptive to the workplace. Indeed, research has found that people can be highly intolerant of views from others that conflict with their own opinions. And it’s not just people from any one political ideology, the researchers found evidence of intolerance across the political spectrum.

So Just How Much Risk Is There In Talking Politics?

Anecdotal stories of friendships ruined, family schisms (an Ipsos poll found 16.4% of respondents stopped talking to a family member after the most recent US election), and even marriage separations might have motivated a team of researchers to dig deeper.

Thanksgiving can be particularly fraught

Researchers from the University of Calgary conducted a study with recruits from across the political spectrum. They were confronted with four scenarios: meeting a stranger at a party with similar political beliefs, meeting a stranger at a party with dissimilar political beliefs, and then learning a close friend had divergent political beliefs, or learning a close friend had similar political beliefs. In each situation, they rated how excited, happy, surprised, upset, anxious or worried they were about the other person, followed by questions on how willing they would be to maintain that friendship and how much they anticipated their feelings and attitudes towards the friend changing.

These guys know how to keep a cool head at work

In the case of similar political beliefs, people felt positively regardless if the person was a friend or stranger. Interestingly, the researchers found that the participants had more trust in and hope for the friendship in strangers with similar political beliefs than close friends with different political beliefs.

Further, negative feelings were highest towards a friend with different political beliefs, even higher than meeting a stranger with different political beliefs. Wouldn’t we have guessed that the goodwill of friendship would have made people feel better about the friend than the stranger?

Political psychologists believe that voting, as in the behavioural expression of political views, is a key part of self-concept and expression. It represents ‘fitting in’ with society at large. Conflicting political beliefs might be a threat to that, all the more potent and, well, threatening, when the person with the conflicting beliefs is close enough to you to be your friend.

Is the election leaving you feeling flat?

Can Your Friendship Stand The Test of Talking Politics?

Only you are the judge. But proceed with caution knowing that you might end up being blocked on Facebook.

Word of advice: if you do talk politics, make sure to use language that discusses the policy or the behaviour, rather than any language that is a personal attack on the belief-holder, or even the candidate. The Pew Research Center found that 54% of respondents think mudslinging is never a fair game, and the same probably goes in conversation.

If you’re going to talk politics, have a mature, outcome-oriented conversation that doesn’t end up making either person sound like name-callers from the second grade. If it comes down to name-calling, you’re not going to change your friends’ opinions anyway!